FRANKFURT.- Since the mid-1990s, Elmgreen & Dragset (Michael Elmgreen, b. 1961 and Ingar Dragset, b. 1969) have consistently challenged familiar spatial structures through their work, lending both public and institutional spaces a distinctive atmosphere. While often being referred to as sculptors, they work in an expanded field that also includes installation, performance and architecture. With their exhibition Stillleben mit Gemüse, the Berlin-based artist duo transforms the Städel Museum into a fascinating interplay of reality and illusion. Their sculptures and installations enter into a dialogue with the permanent collection of the museum, opening up new perspectives.

Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum: “The Städel Museum is internationally renowned for its outstanding collection, which since 2020 also includes the bronze sculpture Si par une nuit d’hiver un voyageur by Elmgreen & Dragset, currently on display in the garden. I am therefore even more delighted that we are now able to present this internationally acclaimed artist duo with a comprehensive exhibition at the Städel. With subtle humour and the ability to unfold grand narratives through minimal interventions, Elmgreen & Dragset transform our view of the collection—from the Old Masters through Modernism to the present day—and offer our visitors truly extraordinary moments as they make their way through the museum.”

Two immersive installations in the Contemporary Art Collection form the core of the presentation, which unfolds throughout the historic collections and into the neighbouring Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung. The exhibition places the visitors at the centre by inviting them to embark on a treasure hunt where artworks can be discovered in unusual places, often in almost absurd dialogue with the works from the collection.

Elmgreen & Dragset situate their figurative sculptures in such a way that they invite the audience to participate in an active game of storytelling. By redirecting and shifting the visitor’s gaze, they bring everyday moments that are easily overlooked into focus and turn these into poetic scenes charged with both criticality and humour. Through their elaborate sense of display, they engage with questions of social structures, conventional behaviour, and institutional routines without being didactic. The artist duo also examines how the museum itself shapes our perception of art history. They subtly subvert traditional forms of presentation and play with the rules of exhibition-making.

“Elmgreen & Dragset succeed in making familiar museum structures experienceable anew through nuanced shifts. Through their targeted interventions, they open up interstitial spaces and question habitual perspectives and expectations. The exhibition centres around two large-scale installations, The Cloud and Garden of Eden, which cast a critical eye on the tensions between labour and luxury, ambition and illusion. The museum becomes a stage for their artistic practice, where nothing is as clear-cut as it first appears”, says Svenja Grosser, curator of the exhibition and Head of Contemporary Art at the Städel Museum.